Special Issue: Science and Fiction

Sometimes, we want to branch out with our offerings so in coming months, we’ll publish an issue on the first and the fifteenth to accomodate some exciting special issues we have planned. Our June special Â issue, London Calling, debuts next month. Brad Green is editing a mini-special issue focusing on crime for the early fall. In December, Aubrey Hirsch and Devan Goldstein will be editing a special issue on Science and Fiction. We’ll be accepting submissions for the Science and Fiction issue from now until October 15 or when the issue fills up, if sooner. Response times for Special Issue submissions are much longer than for regular submissions. Here’s what Aubrey and Devan are looking for:

The Science and Fiction Issue

We are open to anything you’d like to send us as long as it’s “science-y” (please excuse our very technical language). If you need more specific suggestions, here are a few:

Hard science fiction. Jet-packs, food pills, the enslavement of the human race, as long as it doesn’t rely on formula over character. Think more George Saunders and less Tom Godwin, though we do have a soft spot for Rod Serling.
Social science fiction. The discovery of an island where no one can love, a world where insects are the people and people are the insects, an alternate time line USA where Kerry got elected and we cured cancer.
Fiction about science. A story that takes place in a third period biology class, a particle physicist who always wanted to be a cowboy, star-cross cosmologists.
Anything else that surprises us, thrills us, alters our definition of “science fiction” or otherwise makes us drop our beakers in delight.
No formulaic sci-fi, nothing that’s all world-building and no character, no Avatar fan fiction, nothing that comes in an alien language that you invented and we can’t read.

Go here and use the Special Issue option to send us your science/fiction work.

If you would like to propose a special issue, send us your idea to awesome at pankmagazine dot com.